DAVEY Hopper, general secretary of Durham Miners’ Association, the driving force behind the Big Meeting, died just days after calling last year’s event, which attracted 150,000 people, “the best ever”.

The former pitman, along with the union president David Guy, continued to organise the gala, even when numbers dwindled following the widespread pit closures of the 1990s.

He used the platform at Durham Racecourse to accuse New Labour of betraying the working class, oppose the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and attack the Coalition and recent Tory Government’s austerity programmes.

Before Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015, he was invited to speak and last year, Davey introduced him as “the future Prime Minister”.

The left-wing movement was shocked when Davey died aged 73 following a heart attack at his home in East Boldon a week later.

The Labour leader, who led the tributes, said at the time: “He was a wonderful comrade to me for over 30 years and he will not only be desperately missed, but has left us all unforgettable lessons in steadfastness and loyalty to our cause.

“His dedication ensured that the wonderful Durham Miners’ Gala is bigger than ever, and carries on that outstanding spirit of solidarity that the mining communities have always embodied.”

This year, organisers expect the numbers, inflated by the current popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and socialist ideals, to swell to more than 200,000.

A devoted family man, Davey had four children, to his first wife, Brenda, 11 grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

He married Maria Zarzabal in 2006, following Brenda’s death from cancer nine years earlier.

Gary Hopper, Davey's eldest son, who is 54, and works for the probation service, says this weekend would have mixed emotions for his family.

“It has been a bad year," he says. "I am going to be walking with the Monkwearmouth Colliery banner with my son, Nye.

“It will be very emotional day, without my dad. He had been part of the event for all of these years and had been general secretary since 1985.

“He knew a lot of people and one of the reasons there will be a bigger crowd this year is because people will be coming up to pay their respects.

“It will be like a memorial for him.”

Gary says his father would be delighted with the growth in support for Jeremy Corbyn.

“Jeremy Corbyn did not get the ultimate prize to be Prime Minister but dad would have been delighted with the success when everyone was backstabbing him. It was against all the odds.

“He is one of the first people in my lifetime, and in his, to get up there and say what we believe in.

“Younger generations now are looking at that ideal and in the past they have not. It has certainly shaken something up in society. It feels as though the time is right.”

Davey Hopper was born in 1943 in a small colliery house opposite the gates of Wearmouth Colliery, Sunderland, where his father worked.

He followed him into mining aged 15. Over the years he developed a keen interest in union activity and left-wing politics, and in 1977 he and a group of young miners formed a discussion forum, the Durham Left to create a more combative area leadership.

In 1984, the Wearmouth Lodge was among the first to strike against pit closures and throughout the dispute Davey remained dedicated to the cause while Brenda, herself an active trade unionist, raised money to feed striking miners and their families.

After the strike, Davey became general secretary of the NUM (Durham Area) with the late David Guy, as president.

They opposed the subsequent pit closures and supported miners who had been sacked during the strike, getting many reinstated and supporting the others financially.

When the last pit in Durham closed in 1993, the two area leaders put the assets of the Durham Area up as collateral and fought a court battle for compensation for members suffering from the industrial disease vibration white finger.

They won £1.7 billion in compensation for the country’s former miners and followed it up with similar campaigns for those suffering with bronchitis and emphysema.

David Guy died in 2012, and the two men are immortalised on Durham Miners’ Association banner, which will be carried through the street to the racecourse today.

David's son, Stephen, now 49, from Sherburn, who works for the NASUWT, remembers living next door-but-one to the Hoppers as a boy at the miners’ union headquarters in Redhills.

Stephen, also a former miner, says: “He and my dad were a team and they bounced off each other. They have turned the future of the gala around.

“Dave Hopper was very gregarious and a happy fella with a keen interest to bring young people through. He was very kind and warm and always had time for you.

“There is a common belief that Thatcher killed mining, and while she decimated the industry she did not kill the communities or the spirit.

“Dave Hopper leaves a huge legacy, and the gala that he and my dad resurrected continues to give people hope.”